FEEDING. 89 



than that of an occasional change of food to the healthy, 

 and a beverage to the sick and tired horse. 



Rye, although considered equal in point of nutrition to 

 wheat, yet is not recommended for the feeding of horses, 

 on account of its causing an acescent state of the stomach 

 and diarrhoea. As green food, it is not only valuable as a 

 s )iling substance, but is a good fattening material to most 

 auimals, and is usually fed in the early part of the sum- 

 mer, either by turning the horses into the field, or as is 

 most common, cut in quantities and carried into the stable, 

 which is the most economical mode. Rye, however, is 

 scarcely known in the stable in any form, except as straw 

 for litter or bedding, and for this purpose it is extensively 

 and even extravagantly employed, costing more money than 

 almost any one article of stable consumption. 



Carrots are cultivated in the United States by many 

 persons as food for horses, as a substitute for oats. To 

 horses of draught, or slow work, carrots may be fed in 

 greater quantity than to those of the saddle or carriage. 

 The chief value of carrots as food for horses lies in the 

 pectic acid contained in them, which so much assists diges- 

 tion and assimilation. Horses of slow work will thrive 

 and do well when fed on six pounds of carrots and eight 

 pounds of corn-meal in the day, with an allowance of hay. 



Our experience, however, has been, that a better condi- 

 tion of horse has been attained with the same quantity of 

 Swedish or yellow turnips, cut in slices and sprinkled with 

 corn-meal — a feed we think that cannot be excelled either 



